


Into Oblivion

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s01e22 Devil's Trap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:38:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knows something’s wrong. Post Devil’s Trap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into Oblivion

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Забвение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282277) by [Fotini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fotini/pseuds/Fotini)



> Originally posted to LJ 6/21/2006

He doesn’t check himself out of the hospital, so much as walk out. No one comes to check on him and Dean’s not one who’s willing to sit and wait for attention. So he steals a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from someone’s overnight bag and walks out the front door.   
  
His car’s probably totaled he think with a pang. He can only hope his Dad managed to get the weapons out before the cops got wind… He freezes in mid-stride and wonders why the hell he didn’t remember before.  
  
 _Dad,_  he thinks and a second later,  _Christ, Sammy._  
  
He flexes his wrist.  
  
He has no broken bones.  
  
He knows something’s wrong.  
  
***   
  
Dean remembers Max Miller. Remembers the gun floating in front of him, remembers the panic, remembers Max’s pain, remembers Sam bursting in to save him, remembers the blood.   
  
Dean doesn’t know the whole story.  
  
***  
  
When he walks into Sam’s hospital room, his brother latches onto him like he’s six again and afraid of the monster under the bed.  
  
Dean pushes him off. “No chick flick moments.”  
  
Sam has fading green bruises all around his face and an ugly scar on his forehead. “I thought you were dead,” he whispers and his voice is shaking.  
  
“Dead,” Dean repeats, more than a little bewildered, “why the hell would you think that?”  
  
Sam turns his head away, stares at the far wall like he’s afraid someone’s listening.  
  
“They told me I was alone in the car.”  
  
***  
  
He’s got to find Dad, he thinks and pushes the impala past ninety, got to find him before something else does, because he could be like Sammy, alone and different and wrong.  
  
And the Demon’s coming.  
  
***  
  
“You totaled my car,” Dean says finally when he can’t take the silence any longer. “And you used to wonder why I never let you drive.”  
  
Sam’s battered brow wrinkles in confusion. “We were in Dad’s truck.”  
  
“No,” Dean’s says thickly, “it was my car.”  
  
“You were pretty out of it, and then the semi…”  
  
“I would remember.”  
  
“Whatever you say, Dean.”  
  
***  
  
He runs his hands against the smooth, dark metal. She’s there, one piece, weapons in the trunk, tapes in the passenger seat. Devil’s Trap etched on the trunk. The colt safe inside. Sam’s year old bloodstains on the passenger’s seat. A dent from a pack of zombies on the front bumper, a second dent from some the impact of some demon’s body on the left side. He slides in like he has a hundred times before and would have felt at home if he couldn’t see the ghost of his own body lying in the back seat.  
  
***  
  
There’s a white picket fence surrounding a perfectly manicured lawn and Dean stares at the little house feeling like he just stepped into fucking Stepford. The picture’s all wrong—too sunny, too bright, too perfect.  
  
It’s not right to have the name Winchester scrawled across the mailbox.   
  
***  
  
Dean doesn’t know the whole story.  
  
When Max was eight, he was hospitalized with an odd form of schizophrenia, spent six months in psych ward before the doctors pronounced him “cured.”  
  
For the first eight years of his life, Max Miller believed he had an older brother.  
  
***  
  
There’s a little girl at the door. Couldn’t be more than eight years old. She’s got a gap-toothed smile, messy, dark-blond pig tails and Dean swears she has Sammy’s eyes. “I don’t know you,” she tells him bluntly, smile fading from her face. “Daddy says I shouldn’t talk to strangers and Cole will knock your stupid face in if you try to hurt me.”  
  
He lets himself laugh a little. “My name is Dean. I’m here to talk with your Dad.”  
  
And she’s smiling again, completely forgetting her threats. “That’s like my name! Deanna!”  
  
“It’s a good name,” Dean says absently but his heart’s clenching like the optimism and happiness in this house is just a front for something far darker. “You think I could talk to your dad?”  
  
She calls, “Daddy!” and John Winchester appears in the doorway, sleepy eyed and looking ten years younger than he had last time Dean had seen him.  
  
John eyes him suspiciously, not a hint of recognition in his dark gaze. “If you’re selling something, we’re not interested.”  
  
“Dad, it’s Dean,” he starts and John’s face goes from annoyed to murderous in two second like he’s just said, ‘Hello, I’m here to kill your youngest.’  
  
“I don’t know who you are,” he seethes, “but you’ve got some nerve coming here.”  
  
“What are you talking about, Dad? What happened to you? What the hell are you doing here? This isn’t you!”  
  
“Dean’s dead,” his father hisses and Dean’s mouth snaps shuts on it own. “I don’t know who you are. And if I see you again, I swear to God, I will kill you.”  
  
A thousand pleas die on Dean’s lips and the only thing he can make himself say is, “Sammy’s hurt.” And then the door slams in his face.  
  
***  
  
Sam wakes up screaming. Sam always wakes up screaming now, arms flailing out at anything within his rang.   
  
“Sam,” Dean says, catching both his arms and holding them fast even as he struggles. “Sam, it’s OK. Calm down Sam, you’re OK.”  
  
Sam looks up, its always the first thing he does, he’ll be checking the ceiling for bodies until the day he dies. There’s been a new dream every night. A new body every night, just not here.  
  
Sam won’t look at him. “Cassie,” he mutters finally and he’s staring at the empty white ceiling. “It’s going after Cassie.”  
  
***  
  
He looks into the mirror.   
  
He’s still here. He’s still Dean.   
  
No matter what anyone else tells him, that’s never gonna change.  
  
***  
  
When he gets there, she’s on the ceiling, dark hair splayed behind her like some kind of dark angel. She’s not wearing a nightdress but a pair of baggy pajama pants and a black t-shirt. Dean can still see the blood, Dean will be watching the blood fall every night for the rest of his life.   
  
Cassie’s burning and somewhere, not so far away, he can hear the Demon laughing.   
  
There’s nothing he can do.  
  
***  
  
Something makes Dean pause at the door to Sam’s hospital room. There’s someone else inside and Dean swears he recognizes the voice. “Come on, Sam, you’ve got to have someone nearby.”  
  
He hears his brother’s cheerful almost flirtatious reply. “Why’s it so hard to believe that I don’t? It’s alright, really. I’ve got you to keep me company.”  
  
 _Dammit, Sammy,_  Dean thinks,  _you are flirting._  
  
The girl giggles. “Sam, I’m your nurse, this isn’t appropriate. Focus for me.”  
  
He sees a flash of blonde hair through the crack in the door and feels cold seize his chest. He knows that voice. It’s Jess. Sam’s Jess. Dead Jess.  
  
“I get out tomorrow.” Sam says, still flirting (Sam never flirts). “Keep me company?”  
  
Jess laughs. “Seriously, you can’t be that desperate for attention. What about that guy who’s been hanging around here all week? You know, Dean, Your brother.”   
  
“My brother?” Dean watches Sam through the crack in the door. Sees his smiling face twist into a perplexed frown and his next words slice through Dean like a knife. “I don’t have a brother.”  
  
***  
  
He falls asleep in his car and wakes up in an unfamiliar bedroom.   
  
There is no one on the ceiling.  
  
He rolls out of the bed and stares out the window at scenery he doesn’t recognize. “Come back to bed, Jake.”  
  
Dean freezes, turns around slowly. “What did you just call me?”  
  
It’s Cassie’s voice that answers, Cassie in the bed, Cassie who’s supposed to be dead. “What’s wrong, Jake?”  
  
“That’s not my name.”  
  
He’s backing up now, moving quickly towards the door, tactical retreat he tells himself, but he’s running scared.  
  
“Sure it is. Jacob Reed,” Cassie says and now’s she’s worried, stepping towards him. “Are you alright? Did you hit your head or something, I can get a doctor!”  
  
“This isn’t real,” Dean tells her, voice cracking, “My name is Dean, I—” he grabbed a shirt that had bee disregarded on the floor. It fits him perfectly. “I’m sorry.”  
  
He scrambles out the door and slams it in her face.  
  
***  
  
When he looks up, Deanna is standing right in front of him, face twisted into a frown. “I figured it out,” she said quietly. “One of us is make believe. Did you make me up?”  
  
Dean doesn’t have that kind of imagination. Can’t imagine dreaming of anything more surreal than what the world already threw at him. “Where’s you dad?” he asks, avoiding her question.  
  
She wrinkled her nose. “He went to see Sammy.”  
  
“Then who’s watching you.”  
  
“Mom,” she says softly, twirling her hair with her finger.  
  
Dean nearly chokes, “Your mom.”  
  
She stares at him for a moment with Sam’s probing eyes. “Me and Sammy don’t have the same mommy. Dad had Sam before and Mom had Cole and they share me…” she bites her lips and stares at him thoughtfully. “You’re Daddy’s Dean aren’t you? He’s got a picture of you. You got older.”  
  
Dean tries to smile, but fails miserably.  
  
“Mommy says he’s going crazy. He started putting salt everywhere and yesterday, he went and bought a knife.”  
  
He’s dead, Dean realizes as the pieces to the puzzle, he died in the fire with his mom and Dad never stared hunting because Sam was only six months old and there was no older brother to watch him and…  
  
“You don’t think this is real,” Deanna says, wrinkling her nose.  
  
“Sorry, kiddo,” Dean’s voice is far steadier than he is. “I know what I remember.”  
  
“So fix it,” she tells him with the blunt honesty of a child. “Make it better.”  
  
“I don’t know if I can.”  
  
“Do you know who did it?”  
  
He closes his eyes and sees Cassie on the ceiling, sees Sam smiling at Jess, sees his dad and the white picket fence. It’s all wrong.   
  
He can here the Demon laughing.  
  
He forces his eyes open and stares at the little girl in front of him.  
  
Deanna has yellow eyes.  
  
***  
  
The colt’s in his hands before he has a chance to comprehend what was happening. Deanna’s laughing, the high-pitched giggle of an eight year old girl.   
  
“I’ll shoot,” he says and the voice is steady but his hands are trembling.  
  
Deanna smiles, that gap-toothed innocent smile under blazing yellow eyes. “You won’t shoot. She’s just a little girl.”  
  
Dean cocks the gun, fingers tensing on the trigger. “Try me.”  
  
The Demon in the girl’s smirking. Dean’s only got one shot.  
  
“Are you going to shoot a little girl?”  
  
“This isn’t real,” Dean hisses. “None of this is real!”  
  
“It’s all as real as you make it,” the Demon tells him. “You might not want a perfect life, but are you going to take this away from your brother.”  
  
And suddenly, Dean sees its game. Dangle a perfect life in front of him, a white picket fence for him and Cassie and Sam and Dad… Living in oblivion. It wants them out of the way.  
  
“None of this is real,” he whispers, lips twisting into a feral grin.   
  
And he pulls the trigger.  
  
***  
  
Dean wakes up in the car.  
  
There’s blood filling his mouth as he tries to talk, and Sam’s calling his name from a million miles away. “Dean! Dean! Come on Dean. Stay with me, help’s coming…”  
  
“Sammy,” he slurs as his brother’s face swims into focus. “Got it scared, Sammy.” He tries to look at the passenger’s seat, but can’t make out the figure. “Is Dad…”  
  
“He’ll make it. We’ve taken worse hits before…”  
  
Dean smiles faintly. “We’re gonna beat this thing.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam says, looking at his brother oddly, “we are.”


End file.
